Android Mobile Platform Updates From Google I/O

There’s been tons of updates on the Android mobile platform front lately, first with Google announcing the first 50 Android apps chosen in the company’s development contest and now with the latest platform developments showcased at Google I/O on Wednesday.  A big focus here at GPSObsessed is the development of location-based applications, usually mobile apps, as the world of GPS converges with the mobile device industry.  But so far mobile apps have been notoriously difficult to develop thanks to the huge number of platforms a single app needs to work with in order to be successful.  The iPhone and Blackberry are among the popular platforms each app needs to work with, only a couple of the 14 platforms developers need to sync each app too.  Hence Android.  As you may or may not know, Android’s mobile platform uses the Webkit browser.  Google believes over time mobile browsers will be the answer to mobile app development difficulties and consequently is building Android to be a browser that’ll work on any mobile device.  This’ll make mobile apps a whole lot easier to develop and then we should really see some interesting and useful location-based apps coming out of the woodwork.

At I/O, the Engineering Director for Android, Steve Horowitz demonstrated the latest technological advancements in the development of the web browser by demoing a single-touch device running Android.  So far it has a highly useable graphical interface similar to that of the iPhone, and of most interest to GPSObsessed fans is the live tracking capabilities.  In fact just by moving the Android device around, you’ll be able to move around Google Street View.  Apparently, even though a single-touch device was used for the demo, a track ball could have been used as well.

The above info was pulled from the keynote at I/O, and at a later session devoted solely to Android some more interesting details came out.  No specifics were made as to its release date, so nothing looks to have changed from the expected release later this year, but Google did say they wanted to make sure the browser was perfect before its release.  We hope this isn’t a subtle way of saying the release will be delayed.  When questioned on the OEM that manufactured the device Android was demoed on wasn’t disclosed even when spectators pushed.

Spectator who questioned about the use of multi-touch devices with Android were told it would be an easy implementation, but would require developers in the community who would write the right drivers for it.  All the info here was pulled from Techcrunch’s live blog of the conference sessions so excuse the fragmented writing, but now you have the latest update on Android.  Stay tuned this weekend for some more Android app reviews.

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